First Initial Idea

My first idea is in the form of a short film and/or an experimental music video about a guy who is on a hallucinogenic trip/journey.

Target Audiences

• Fans of experimental short films

• Fans of Experimental music videos

• Fans of psychedelic short films and music videos

• People who can relate to what this character has gone through, for example drug takers who have tried hallucinogenics such as mushrooms, LSD, DMT and more, this could be relatable for them, could also be targeted towards people who have resorted to drugs because they’ve had such a hard time.

• Fans of short films

• People between the ages of 16-50, this is because it is such a complicated idea for children younger than 16 to be able to analyse and it might be scary for them as well as it might be scary for the elderly over 50 years old, so if we are talking an age demographic it would be very wide but excluding the old and the young.

• There is no ethnic demographic until I cast my actors.

Idea

The idea is about someone who is on a hallucinogenic trip/journey, throughout the scenes of him walking through the place where he is, he will walk through the situations that made him become like this, it will tell a narrative of how he has ended up where he is, there will be colourful visuals and it will start off at a positive place and end up in a very negative place where the main character faces a dilemma inside his head which makes the journey he’s on go incredibly negative to the point where he wakes up and seen what he has done, an idea for this is to have really long shots, use quite a lot of green screening, double exposure and visual effects with a bit of motion graphics, I also had an idea to give the illusion that it is all filmed in one shot by camera trickery, E.g. walking into a dark room and then the transitions go into the next room, I am going to have people wearing scary make up, dark rooms, bright rooms, lots of visuals, the visuals will either be made or filmed and then using blending modes I will put the visuals either filmed or made on top of each other, they will be very colourful using techniques similar to optical illusions, will also be incorporated into some of the storyline about this guy’s life and how it affected this trip, I will also use sound editing to warp the music or dialogue dependant on whether it will be a music video. I will most probably use a voiceover for the beginning bit, which could repeat with sound editing to rewind or make the voice go deeper or higher.

Strengths

• It’s a very good concept and with a lot of striking visuals of many types it could work and look very visually enthralling but they will definitely need some planning.

• It’s got a good storyline with things such as flashbacks and the visuals to back it up, if I can come up with a good storyline to back up what is happening within the frame and place the storyline somewhere which will help it make sense in a way, it can be experimental but then really make the viewer think about how his backstory has impacted his life.

• Using effects such as green screening and keying as well as double exposure within After Effects, Photoshop and Premiere Pro I am planning to make some cool visuals, I will most probably sketch them out first and maybe make an animatic with what I would like the visuals to look like in the background, when I have the green screen footage and footage in general I will most probably use keying to see what my footage looks like with my animatic and then build up the visuals from there on, overall the visuals of the short film/music video will be very trippy and psychedelic.

Weaknesses

• The visuals need to be very out there and over the top for it to really work, so to make sure this will work I am going to do some test footage of someone walking by the green screen in many various camera shots and angles and then see which visuals will work well if I wanted to carry it out in the real shoot, I will definitely test out which colour visuals go with different angles and see if I can blend it in with the original test footage clip to overcome the problem of if it will all blend in and look as psychedelic as I want it to without trying too hard.

• When I am writing the storyline I need to consider what I need to include and how I am going to carry out the storyline, it will most probably be about a story that the main character has gone through in order to make it blend in with what is happening on the screen with visuals, it needs to be a deep story which has made the main guy turn to substances that make him feel like this, the ideas I have are to show the man falling out with people, fighting, getting in with the wrong crowd, seeing things he isn’t supposed to which is all in the build-up of how he gets to this point, so a weakness is that I need a storyline that will work well with this, I will probably do this through idea generation and research into which storyline would fit into the psychedelic trip the best way.

• Another weakness is coming up with the actual ideas for the visuals and what they are going to be, some story boards on what the actual drug trip is going to look like, the ideas I have at the moment are very random and colourful but I need to come up with some clear cut visual ideas in order to make this work.

Opportunities

• One or two cameras which will either be a Sony HXR, a Canon DSLR or a Black Magic Camera.

• The green screen TV studio in The Hive At Weymouth College

• One actor who will play the main character who is going through the hallucinogenic trip

• I will maybe have some more actors dependant on what storyline and outcome I come up with and if I want the short film/music video to be purely visual/experimental or if I want it to have some form of narrative

• Access to the creative suite I will be using Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects for the video editing and motion graphics and then I will also use Photoshop for some elements of the motion graphics if I decide to put any in.

• If I decide to have the film/music video have a storyline or to just go with purely visuals I will need some locations dependant on what the storyline will consist of

• If I decide to put a voiceover into the video/short film I will need access to the recording studio located in The Hive in Weymouth College, prior to this I will need a voice actor or I will voice it myself.

Threats/barriers

• Getting permission to use locations that I want to film in.

• Getting the correct lighting in order to do make the green screen not blend in with the actor in front of it.

• Making the visuals or filming the visuals I want to have in the background could take a while depending on what sort of visuals I want to include

I am still undecided about if this is going to be my final major - WATCH THIS SPACE